At the 2:8 House, two families serve a hot meal to Oklahoma University students every Tuesday afternoon, providing opportunities for ministry and fellowship.
Bible studies and discipleship meetings are held in the house, conveniently located a few blocks from the university campus, in Norman, Oklahoma.
The casual gatherings for games, sports events and other fun activities provide opportunities to share Christ.
Each fall, hundreds of thousands of university students converge on campuses all around us. Many of these universities open their arms to students from around the world. The same is true for at the University of Oklahoma.
Each year at the 2:8 House, we open our home to hundreds of international students who are bringing their countries and cultures to our front doors. The "2:8" of the 2:8 House is from 1 Thessalonians 2:8, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our very lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”
Many international students never receive the opportunity to visit an American home, yet they study in our back yards and they return home to be movers and shakers in their countries and even the world. Our mission on campus is to open our hearts, our minds, our arms, our front doors to share the love of Jesus with our neighbors.
Here at the 2:8 House, we believe our calling is to live out the gospel before our neighbors. We do this by initing students into our home, sharing meals, engaging in life with them and sharing our stories. Our story has been influenced, even transformed, by the story of the gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that propels us to live out our faith before all people. In the past few years, students from more than 28 states and 34 countries have participated in some type of ministry activity at the 2:8 House.
We accomplish this in a variety of ways: Table fellowship, game nights, international food nights, Bible study and discipleship, one-on-one times and various get-togethers. However, each way can be summed up in one word: relationship. We are relationship-builders. George Hunter explains, “Faith is not usually spread by mass media or by strangers, but by persons who are known and trusted by their hearers.”
Here are a few snapshots of love winning:
Nichole, a student, left this note with us following our lunch one week: “The fellowship we’ve been able to have with each other every week has meant a lot to us. It has also meant a lot to me to see friends who would never step into church come and eat lunch with me and all my Christian friends and see the community we have. So many barriers have begun to come down around your table. Thank you for sharing your home with us.”
Robert and Patricia are two graduate students (from a country some of us would consider our enemy) with whom we have built a relationship this year. We have shared several meals, including Thanksgiving, and helped them find furniture for their apartment. They have come to a local church to play volleyball and build relationships. Each time we are together our friendship deepens. When we leave they always comment, “We are so thankful we were invited to the 2:8. You are about our only friends. It is an honor to be in someone’s home.”
Ching-Mei is a very dear friend to the Kyncl family. Her journey to faith while a university student is featured in the one of the current Nazarene Missions International missionary books,
Strangers No More, by Aimee Curtis. The Kyncl family has also travelled to visit Ching-Mei and her family in Taiwan.
Narrative Missiology is entrenched in incarnational ministry; Narrative Missiology thrives on life sources. Therefore, our ability to talk about life allows those things important to us to be revealed. The opportunity to share our stories opens us up to hear God’s story more clearly, the story of God’s presence and participation in our lives and in the life of the world. In a postmodern world that desires real experience and real relationship, our ability to engage in ministry hinges on our ability to invite and be invited into the lives of people. It hinges on our ability to proclaim and reveal through our lives in Christ that love wins!
-- David and Rhonda Kyncl continue to serve as the directors of the 2:8 house, and have been at the student center for 11 years. Rhonda is the dean of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma. Craig and Anita Shepperd have served four years as missionaries in Southeastern Europe. They are the assistant directors at the 2:8 house, and Craig also serves at Norman Community Church of the Nazarene as the pastor of discipleship and young adults. To learn more, visit www.28house.org.